


To Hela and Back

by cazmalfoy



Series: Best Friends [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - College/University, Bruce and Tony are Brothers, Established Relationship, Good guy Hela, Half-Siblings, M/M, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-23 02:50:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19142059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cazmalfoy/pseuds/cazmalfoy
Summary: Tony accidentally hacks into the New York Adoption Agency database and finds out about Loki's biological family.





	To Hela and Back

Tony hadn’t meant to do it. Honestly, it had been an accident.

Despite him offering to hack into whatever database held information on Loki’s birth parents, Tony had always known that his offer would always be declined.

He had been in the middle of a lecture at MIT, bored out of his mind, when he hacked into the New York database for adoptions; not because he wanted to help Loki against his wishes, but simply because he was bored and wanted to prove to _himself_ that he could.

“I don’t know what to do,” Tony complained later that day, pacing his private dorm room back and forth.

On the computer monitor in front of him, Bruce’s brown eyes followed his movements for a long moment. “Why did you even try it?” There was no judgement in his older brother’s voice and that just made it worse.

Tony came to a halt in the middle of the room and turned to face the computer. “Because I’m an idiot.” Bruce snorted and rolled his eyes in the same way he did whenever Tony referred to himself as anything less than the genius he was. “I don’t know,” Tony whined. “I just wanted to see if I _could.”_

“You need to tell him,” Bruce pointed out softly. “He deserves to know.”

The teenager sighed heavily and slumped into the seat at the desk, making eye contact with Bruce through the webcam. “He’s going to kill me.”

An affectionate smile spread across Bruce’s face. “You know that’s not true,” he argued. “Loki loves you.”

Tony scoffed. “We’ll see when he finds out how much of an idiot I am.”

Bruce laughed. “Tone, he’s been your best friend since you were eight. Trust me, he already knows.”

*

A whole week passed before Tony found enough courage to admit to Loki what he had done. Tony tried to tell himself that it was because he wanted to tell his boyfriend face to face, but deep down he knew it was just an excuse.

He was terrified Loki would be furious enough to break up with him.

Loki wasn’t an idiot. He knew there was something wrong with Tony as soon as the dark-haired teenager had picked him up for the weekend. They had booked a suite in a lodge north of the city to spend some quality time together.

Quality time that Tony was now going to ruin; because that was what he _did_ apparently, Tony couldn’t help thinking bitterly.

“Are you okay?” Loki asked, his attention flicking from the road briefly to glance at Tony. His right hand was resting on Tony’s thigh and Tony felt like the touch was burning its way through his skin.

Trying to push his thoughts to the side, Tony nodded his head. “Yeah,” he lied, placing his hand over Loki’s and interlacing their fingers.

Between them, they didn’t say much for the remainder of the drive. Tony knew it was out of character for him to be able to keep his mouth shut, but he didn’t dare open it in case he blurted out what was really bothering him.

The last thing he wanted was to surprise Loki when they were on the open road and for him to crash the car, killing them both.

It was early evening when they arrived at the lodge. With the sun setting behind the building, it looked almost picturesque and Tony couldn’t help pausing as they climbed out of Loki’s car, wanting to savour the moment.

Without waiting for a word from Loki, Tony headed into the reception to get them checked in. It also gave him an excuse to steel his nerves and try to talk himself into speaking with Loki. Not that he was sure it worked; he had been trying to speak to his boyfriend for days, and he still didn’t feel ready.

Less than five minutes later and with room keys in hand, Tony stepped back out into the open air. Loki was standing beside his car, with their bags at his feet. He looked up when Tony approached but didn’t speak as he waited for the genius to tell him where they needed to go.

Their room was at the back of the building, overlooking the lake. The man behind the check-in desk had told him he had reserved it specifically, but Tony didn’t remember doing that. Not that he was surprised; he had been running on a few hours sleep for years and was used to coming across things he didn’t remember doing.

As soon as the door was closed behind them, Loki tossed his bags onto the double bed in the centre of the room and turned to glare at Tony. “Okay, what is it?” he demanded, folding his arms across his chest. Without waiting for a response from Tony, Loki continued, “Don’t try to bullshit me, Tony. I know you better than anyone and there’s obviously something bothering you. I get it if you don’t want to tell me, but I’m your boyfriend. We’re supposed to be able to talk to each other.”

Anger was tinging Loki’s words, but it was impossible to miss the unlying hurt that Tony seemingly didn’t trust him.

Tony sighed sadly and took a step closer to Loki. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I just didn’t know how to tell you this.” Fear flashed over Loki’s face and Tony immediately screwed his face up as he realised what the other teenager had interpreted his words to mean. “Oh god, that came out wrong. I didn’t mean we need to talk about our relationship!”

Loki relaxed marginally, but he was still on high alert as he studied Tony. “Then what is it?”

The bed creaked a little as Tony sat on it and ran his hands through his hair. “I’m an idiot and can’t keep my nose out of shit that isn’t mine.” Loki raised a questioning eyebrow but didn’t interrupt as he waited for Tony to continue. “I accidentally hacked into New York’s adoption database.”

Loki’s mouth fell open. “How do you accidentally hack into a database?” he asked incredulously.

A flush coloured Tony’s cheeks and he turned his eyes away from Loki in embarrassment. “I was bored,” he whispered. “I was curious to see if I could do it.”

Silence followed his words and Tony could feel his heart beating wildly in his chest. He was an idiot to tell Loki this when they were nowhere near home. His boyfriend was going to break up with him and leave with the only car they had brought, leaving Tony stranded in…

“What did you find?” Loki asked his voice derailing Tony’s thoughts completely.

Tony blinked in surprise. “What?”

A soft sigh escaped Loki’s mouth and he rolled his green eyes. “When you hacked into the database, what did you find?” he repeated.

“Nothing,” Tony swore. “As soon as I was in, I closed the whole thing down and I’ve been feeling awful about it since.”

Loki stood up from the bed so suddenly that Tony couldn’t help flinching in response. The taller teenager didn’t speak, but he did roll his eyes as he crossed the room to where Tony had dropped his bag earlier. Tony watched Loki crouch down and his bag without even asking for permission.

When he saw what Loki pulled out, Tony wasn’t surprised that he had known the laptop was in there. Even if he wasn’t planning on using it, Tony usually took it with him; a modern comfort blanket.

“Do you think you can do it again?” Loki asked, coming to a stop in front of Tony and holding the laptop out to him.

Tony blinked owlishly up at Loki, trying to work out what he was asking. “You want me to hack into the database again?” he clarified, just to make sure Loki wasn’t messing with him.

Loki nodded firmly and sat down on the bed next to Tony. “I’m not mad at you,” he stated. “Not really. I’ve… I’ve actually been trying to figure out how to ask you to do it for a few months now.”

Tony couldn’t help raising an eyebrow. “Why didn’t you say anything? I offered to do it _years_ ago!”

“I know,” Loki soothed, reaching out a hand and covering Tony’s with his own. “But I was still undecided on whether I wanted to know. Even when I made my mind up, I kept second guessing myself. But…” He took a deep breath and met Tony’s brown eyes with his own green. “I’m ready now. I need to know who they were.”

Despite what he was saying, it wasn’t difficult for Tony to detect that there was still a note of uncertainty in his boyfriend’s voice, and he offered him what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered, leaning into Loki’s personal space.

He pressed a soft kiss against his boyfriend’s lips before he opened the computer and powered it up. “Let’s do this.”

*

When Loki had asked Tony to find his birth parents, he hadn’t expected for them to be dead.

Loki hadn’t cried, but Tony could tell he had wanted to. Tony had tried to tell him that it was okay to feel emotion at the discovery, but Loki had been insistent that he didn’t feel anything.

 _“How can I be upset over losing something I never had?”_ Loki had asked Tony after being pressed for long enough.

Tony had tried to insist that he wouldn’t think anything less of Loki if he did cry, but his boyfriend stubbornly insisted that there was nothing wrong. Loki had promptly slid to his knees and Tony had forgotten what they had been arguing about.

Until he returned to MIT. Loki was gorgeous and sexy, but even he couldn’t distract Tony for long from something he had his mind set on.

Which was exactly the reason why it was four in the morning three days after returning to school and Tony was still awake, bashing away at his keyboard as he hacked into the adoption database. Again.

Mary Laufey had taken Loki to the orphanage when he had been three days older. She had given no information about the baby’s father as she turned the child over and disappeared into the busy New York streets. Never to be seen again.

Tony was sure there had to be something on the database that gave more information about Mary. All he knew was that she had been involved in a car accident the winter after Loki had been born, and she’d introduced her car to a lamp post. The lamp post had won.

The NYPD database hadn’t listed anything else, and Tony had recognised a lost cause when he saw one.

So, he had returned to the adoption database.

It had been just before midnight when Tony had widened his search for Mary’s name to cover five years before Loki had arrived. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, Tony reasoned with himself, that his boyfriend wasn’t the only child Mary had given up for adoption.

At 4.13AM, Tony was just feeling his eyes beginning to fall closed when his computer beeped, and he jerked upright in surprise. There was a blue message in the centre of the screen and Tony rubbed his bleary eyes to focus.

He’d finally found something. Another record which had Mary Laufey’s name attached to it.

With his heart hammering in his chest, Tony clicked on the record and tried to make sense of it. The record was dated four years before Loki had been born and it looked to Tony as though Loki wasn’t the only child Mary had put up for adoption.

Unlike the first time he had been in the database, Tony knew that Loki would want to know. But he also knew that his boyfriend would _not_ appreciate being woken up so early in the morning. He jotted down details of the other baby and finally closed the database.

He would get some sleep and call Loki first thing in the morning.

*

Tony had never seen Loki so nervous. The silver-tongued teenager was never without a sarcastic comeback and he always oozed confidence.

Sitting opposite him in one of the neighbourhood’s cafés, Tony thought Loki was going to throw up or pass out.

“Hey,” Tony whispered, reaching out to put his hand over Loki’s where he was drumming his fingers against the tabletop. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

Loki drew in a breath and offered Tony a reassuring smile. “I’m fine.” He wasn’t; even an idiot would have been able to spot that. But Tony didn’t press his boyfriend. He knew it was best to let Loki work through the thoughts that were running through his mind.

A small bell jingling over the door should not have been able to get their attention, but it somehow managed to make both Loki and Tony look up.

As soon as Tony spotted the figure in the doorway, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that this person was who they were waiting for. Tall, thin and with shoulder length jet black hair, the woman couldn’t be anyone other than Loki’s biological sister.

“Wow,” Tony couldn’t stop himself from breathing. “She looks just like you.”

Loki nodded distractedly, his fingers fiddling with the zipper on his leather jacket. He got to his feet just as the young woman turned in their direction. Even across the room, it was impossible to miss that her eyes were the same green as Loki’s, and they widened marginally as they took in the teenager’s expression.

“Loki?” the woman asked as she approached the pair of them, bypassing the idea of getting coffee completely.

When Loki didn’t respond, Tony nudged gently in the back. “Yes!” Loki exclaimed a little louder than was necessary and his cheeks flushed red.

Tony rolled his eyes at his boyfriend and stepped around the other teenager. “You must be Hela,” he greeted, holding his hand out to shake hers. “I’m Tony.”

Hela looked curious why there someone else in the coffee shop, but she didn’t say anything as she shook Tony’s hand and slipped into the third seat at the table.

Her movement seemed to snap Loki out of the daze he had been in and he landed back on Earth with a bump as he dropped into his earlier vacated seat.

“You must be the boyfriend who emailed me,” Hela surmised, her eyes flicking up to Tony who had remained standing, before returning to Loki.

Loki offered her bashful smile and nodded his head a little. “I was too nervous to get in touch,” he confessed, his voice barely more than a whisper.

Hela nodded understandingly and Tony had to fight to not grin at their interactions. Even the way they were sitting was the same. There was no doubt that this woman was Loki’s biological sister.

“I’ll grab us some drinks,” Tony volunteered himself. “Hela, what would you like?” She offered him a smile and reeled off her order of a simple black coffee. Tony threw Loki an encouraging smile and patting his boyfriend on the shoulder as he headed over to the counter, leaving brother and sister alone at the table and hoping things weren’t going to be awkward for them.

*

The sun was beginning to set when Hela, Loki and Tony finally left the cafe, after being turfed out by the owners who wanted to go home.

On the sidewalk the three of them paused and Hela threw Loki a small smile as she reached into her purse and pulled out her car keys. “I’m really glad you asked me here today,” she said softly, her eyes flickering between Loki and Tony.

Loki smiled bashfully and ducked his head a little. “Me too,” he whispered, leaning into Tony’s side for comfort while the teenage genius grabbed his boyfriend’s hand.

“Give me a call the next time you want to chat, and I’ll drop by town,” Hela instructed; they had already exchanged cell numbers earlier that afternoon. “Or you can visit me upstate whenever you want,” she offered.

During their conversation, they had established that Hela ran her own business in upstate New York which specialised in Interior Decorating.

Tony flashed Hela a giant grin and squeezed Loki’s hand. “We’ll definitely take you up on that,” he agreed for them both, earning him matching smiles from both Hela and Loki.

They made a little bit more small talk before saying their goodbyes and heading to their respective cars.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Loki said, expelling a breath Tony hadn’t realised he’d been holding.

Tony hummed distractedly for a moment as he reached into his pocket for his car keys. “What were you expecting?” he asked, releasing Loki’s hand and moving around to the driver’s side of the vehicle.

On the other side of the car, Loki shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno, homicidal maniac?” he offered.

Tony laughed and rolled his eyes. “I think that only ever happens in movies,” he pointed out before climbing into the car and slamming the door closed behind him. He quickly turned serious as he slid the key into the ignition. “I’m glad the two of you get along.”

Loki offered him a smile. “That would have been awkward considering it was your idea to meet up in the first place,” he quipped. He leant closer to Tony, stopping just shy of their lips connecting. “Thank you for that, by the way.”

He offered the taller teenager a brilliant grin and closed the small gap between them, pressing a soft kiss against Loki’s mouth.

“I just didn’t want you to regret not seeing what could happen,” Tony said, trying to downplay his part in the events of the afternoon. “Come on. Let’s go back to your place and you can call Thor.” Loki groaned and Tony smirked. “You know he wants to be told everything that happened.”

Loki ran a hand over his face and screwed his eyes closed with a laugh. “Oh god, do I have to?” Tony simply chuckled and nodded his head. “He’s just so _loud_!” Loki whined, making Tony laugh more.

“He’s just happy for you is all,” Tony argued, putting his hand on Loki’s thigh as they pulled into traffic.

The dark-haired teenager scowled although there was a twinkle in his eye that betrayed how he really felt; he was ecstatic that his older brother cared so much about Loki’s happiness.

“Well, I wish he’d express his happiness quietly,” Loki muttered darkly.

Tony just laughed and rolled his eyes.


End file.
